Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: slacker711 who wrote (95144)	11/10/2008 11:08:12 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541849

I dunno. We don't need dramatic changes where I teach. We've got pretty good test scores. We do not have enough money to remediate our Hispanic students, and we have a large minority population. The middle class and upper middle class kids do great in classes of 32+ (of course smaller would be better- since you can do so much more of the seminar type class with a small group). The Hispanic kids flounder. A teacher just can't do remediation AND teach 32 kids full time. I think what we need are full time teaching assistants who could help Hispanic kids (and other 2nd language children, and our special ed population) come up to speed on school work. The inner cities also need help- but they need help bringing all children up to standard. If you go with vouchers you siphon off the kids who give ANY sustenance to teachers, and they take the only parents who care with them. It would be much better to concentrate on the poor performing schools- get the ratios down to 15/1 (or less if necessary- because I've been to continuation schools, and those kids are HARD to reach, and you need small classes). Then you need to instill pride, discipline, and a good simple curriculum to bring up the test scores so you can sell people on the program's effectiveness. I think I could whip an inner city school in to shape if I had enough resources. Without any money, though, it's not going to happen. There are too many systemic problems, which all need to be faced at the same time- for solutions on the cheap to work. IMO